


When the Words Are Wrong

by Tibbins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Arguing, Episode: s13e14 Good Intentions, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 19:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibbins/pseuds/Tibbins
Summary: Continuation of 13x14. Dean isn't happy about what Cas did. Arguing ensues. Implied Destiel.





	When the Words Are Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> Phew, this one has taken me a while! I'm so sorry! It's taken me ages to wrangle it into something even remotely coherent.
> 
> But I just had to have a continuation fic, was 13x14 amazing or what?! So many important things! Lots of wonderful scenes. Although I have to admit, I'm a little annoyed with how often they're hitting Sam in the head lately. Poor guy just wants to stay conscious, is that too much to ask?
> 
> Anyhoo, here you go.
> 
> This fic starts immediately after 13x14, give or take a second or so.
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

 

"Sammy, give us the room a second, would ya?" Dean asked, sparing his brother a glance. Sam hesitated, clearly ready to have an imput in this argument, but as his eyes flickered from Dean to Cas, he nodded and left without a word.

Dean waited for his footsteps to fade, considering the angel in front of him as he did so. Cas' eyes were chips of ice and his shoulders were set for confrontation. Everything in his posture screamed defiance, ironic really.

"Don't do this, man." Dean said when he heard the faint sound of Sam's bedroom door closing, "we've come too far."

"Do what?" Cas spat.

"Lose yourself." Dean's voice was quiet but the way that Castiel faltered confirmed that he had heard him.

"What are you talking about?"

"You crossed a line today."

"I did what was necessary." Cas insisted, leaning forward as though preparing for a fight, "we're trying to prevent a  _war_ , one that could destroy this entire planet. We needed that spell and there was no other way to get it."

"Wasn't there? You didn't exactly give us the time to explore options."

"We didn't  _have_  time, Dean! You saw Sam's face when he found out Donatello had lied to us. Like there was no hope. Would you rather he be right?"

Dean clenched his teeth together, yes, that look on Sammy's face had cut him deeply, especially when he had known that it was something that he couldn't fix.

"So you turned Donatello's brain into pudding because Sam gave you puppy dog eyes?"

Cas' lips quirked slightly, "not quite, although his reaction was… strong."

"Yeah, well… he's going through a lot."

"Yes." Cas said. "And don't you think obtaining the spell helped?"

"Don't try and use him to make me okay with this." Dean said, folding his arms. "I'm not okay with this."

"You think I am?"

"Well you don't exactly seem to be broken up about it."

"It was the right thing."

"No, Cas, It wasn't."

Cas looked at him then and while there was no guilt in his expression, there was something deeper.

"You're right. Because the right thing would have been to kill him. You were the ones who told me not to do that."

Dean flinched back, repressing a shiver at the coldness of Cas' words.

"Jeez, Cas, do you hear yourself? Since when have you been okay with murder?"

Ca raised an eyebrow, "Since when haven't you? We kill all the time, Dean. You're planning on killing Ketch when he's no longer useful to you."

"Because Ketch is a scumbag who tortured Mom and murdered innocent people."

"And Donatello tried to beat Sam to death, sent us off to be killed by Gog and Magog and cast a spell on you that could have killed you if you hadn't gotten out of there so fast, so what's the difference?" Cas met his eyes, daring him to answer, "tell me, because I can't see one."

Dean clenched his jaw. "The difference is that  _you_  don't make decisions like that. The difference is that when I said we were gonna take Ketch out, you didn't look like you were okay with that and now you're just peachy messing with people's minds? You start down this road, where does it end? Huh? Out on cases when you know someone's lying, are you just gonna start zapping them 'cause it's easier, 'cause it saves time?"

"Do you think that little of me?" Cas' eyes sparked with fire, "Do you think this one, unpleasant act has suddenly destroyed my entire concept of morality?"

"I don't know, Cas, you tell me."

Cas scoffed in disbelief and shook his head. Dean didn't back down, he couldn't. He wasn't entirely sure why he couldn't let this go but Cas had done something bad today, something that Dean hadn't thought the angel capable of, and it made his stomach sour.

"Unbelievable." Cas said with a humourless laugh. "You are unbelievable. I can't even comprehend right now what it is that you expect from me. You've always held me to a high standard, Dean and I've always appreciated it; so I'm sorry if I have disappointed you but I stand by my decision. What I did was distasteful, yes, but Donatello was corrupted by a power beyond himself, there was no way that he would just cooperate and we needed that spell. And frankly, I find it hypocritical that you're fighting me on this. That spell is the key to getting Jack and Mary back, to stopping Asmodeus and Lucifer  _and_  Michael. So I got the spell before you had to ask me to."

Dean started at that.

"What?" He asked.

Cas looked away, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. "We both know that Donatello was never going to just tell us the spell," he said, his voice losing some of its hard edge, "this was the only way, and it would have  _remained_  the only way, no matter how much we debated. Had I told you that I was going to extract the information and the possible consequences of that, it would have involved a long, time-consuming discussion, but eventually, one of you would have made the decision to tell me to do it. I spared you that guilt by making the decision for you."

Dean let those words settle in his brain while he stared at the angel. Cas' blue eyes were stony, his mouth was set in a thin line.

"Right," he said finally, "see, the problem is, you don't look like you're feeling any guilt at all."

Cas glared at him.

"I'm not." He said, "I can't."

"Can't?"

"I don't have the luxury of doubt right now." Cas snapped. "Dean, this is the start of something huge, something that we have never faced before. If our plan doesn't work, and Michael is set loose on this world, then the devastation will be terrible and complete. In the face of that, the brain function of one soulless prophet means nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean asked. He felt sapped of energy, a rock in his stomach. "What happened to 'all humans are works of art'?"

Cas blinked, looking surprised at the reference.

"That was a long time ago, Dean." He said softly.

"Well who knew your memory was so bad?" Dean retorted, "Isn't that the whole reason you rebelled in the first place? because you didn't want to watch good people die."

"We watch good people die all the time." Cas said heatedly, "This was the only way to prevent  _more_  death. You know that as well as I do. Donatello was corrupted and he had no soul. He was no longer a good person, he was barely human."

"As defined by you?"

"Yes."

Dean looked away from the fire in his friend's eyes, swallowing hard.

"I'm just worried about you, Cas." Dean said, feeling his anger evaporate as he exhaled the words, the truth of them hit like a punch to the gut. "It's not like you to make a call like that without even trying to find another way. I know you're going through a lot right now. I know you want to do everything you can to get Jack back and to stop this war before it starts, I know you're trying to do the right-"

"Don't  _patronise_  me." Castiel's voice was like thunder and Dean swore he felt a hint of static in the air. "You claim you know me and yet you couldn't tell me apart from a Prince of Hell. You claim that morality matters but you are one of the most ruthless people I've ever met. You claim you need me but you object when I take action. You were the one who told me that we needed to do whatever it takes. Well,  _this_  is what it took. I'm sick of your hypocrisy. I got you what you needed like I always do. And like always, you're quick to point out every way that I have failed. I don't know why I expected anything else."

"Cas-" Dean said, the word catching in his throat, but the angel skirted around him and strode off down the corridor, presumably towards his room, leaving Dean alone in the war room. Dean sank into the closest chair, his face in his hands. Well that had been a disaster. The hair on his arms still stood up at Cas' little power trick but now that his anger had vanished he just felt cold. Cold and hopeless. Worst of all was that Cas had been right. Almost everything he said had been spot on. Dean  _was_  a hypocrite. He made life or death decisions all the time. He'd killed better people than Donatello in order to save others. Donatello had clearly lost it, no soul, no redemption, the dude had stopped his lungs and left Sam with a hell of a bruise. So why did he feel so bad about what had happened to him?

 _Because if Cas was willing to do_ this _, what else might he do?_

The thought swirled around his mind, adding nausea to his already overwhelmed system. Dean had no doubts that Cas would stick by that stupid mantra.

"Stupid." He cursed himself, why did he have to go and say something so dumb? He knew Cas took crap like that to heart.

"I take it your talk didn't go well?"

Dean jumped at Sam's voice, he hadn't heard him come in.

"No Sam," he sighed, raising his head to look at his brother and dropping his hands. "It was a mess."

"Yeah, I, uh, I heard yelling and I heard someone storm off. I thought it might have been you."

"Nope." He popped the 'p' as Sam took the chair opposite him. "I screwed it up. Now he's more pissed off than ever."

"He'll cool off." Sam said, "and, you know, he  _did_  get us the spell."

"Not you too." Dean sighed. He was exhausted. "You can't tell me you're okay with what he did to Donatello."

"Hell no." Sam said quickly. "But maybe Cas was right and killing him would have been kinder."

"The beauty of hindsight." Dean quipped. "He shouldn't have done anything like that. He shouldn't have felt like he had to."

"But he did." Sam's eyes were open and kind, "and maybe we should just forgive him."

"Forgive him?" Dean was confused.

Sam frowned at his tone. "Yeah, I mean, Donatello went darkside, sent you and Cas off to die, attacked me with… what was it, a lamp? A bottle? I can't even remember and he force-choked  _you_. He was clearly too far gone and this was our chance to get the spell. What if we were still trying to talk Donatello down? Or what if we  _had_  let Cas kill him and we were out searching for the new prophet? That could have taken days,  _months_. All the while, Jack and Mom are lost or being tortured in another world. What we're trying to do is important and I might not like the method, but we have more of a chance now than we've had in weeks. We have a real shot at this thing, we just need to get the ingredients. Having something real to aim for is worth a lot, you know?"

"Is it worth Donatello's mind?"

Sam was silent for a moment.

"I don't know." He said, his expression grim. "But it's not like we can take it back so we might as well see this thing through and be grateful for the opportunity."

Dean pondered this a moment. True, moping around wouldn't get Donatello his mind back, if his mind had even been his own at the end, and maybe Dean had jumped down Cas' throat once too often when it came to the 'how' of Cas getting things done and that made Dean a huge-ass hypocrite, but dammit, Cas was supposed to be  _better_  than this. He was supposed to stick up for the one over the many, he was supposed to fight for every human life, not fry their brains. It wasn't that Dean needed to  _forgive_  Cas for what he'd done, not in the way that forgiving someone usually meant. He just wanted to make sure that it wouldn't happen again. That kind of crap… it took something from you. Dean's fingers ghosted over his right forearm, where the Mark of Cain had been. Sam's eyes flickered towards the action and pressed his lips together.

"Look, Cas is still the same guy he was yesterday, he's still the same guy we've known for years. Today was a bad day but you know that's not who Cas is, not really. Honestly, I don't think there was a lot of Donatello left anyway, what would leaving him locked in the dungeon accomplish? We would have had to have done something eventually."

"Yeah," Dean said quietly, thinking back to a few hours ago when he'd been laughing at two men in loincloths, trying to get Cas to crack a smile, everything had felt so much easier then, with a task to do and dudes to fight and Cas by his side it had been so easy to smile; that feeling was gone now, replaced by tension and worry, "but then we would all have made that decision, together. When's he gonna realise that he's not on his own in this?"

Sam's lips twitched.

"Maybe when you tell him."

"I  _have_  told him, Sam. We've both told him. Dude just doesn't listen. He keeps running off to do his own thing, he's so damn  _eager_  to jump in headfirst, that he doesn't stop to think about what he's doing."

"Sounds like you." Sam said, leaning back in his chair. "I've felt the same thing about you for years. I'd've thought you'd understand where he's coming from."

"I do," Dean said grimly, "that's why I'm so worried."

Sam chuckled.

"Try talking to him again in the morning." He suggested, "It's late and if you stay out here all night you're only going to work yourself up. Maybe try thinking over his reasoning for doing what he did."

"We  _know_  his reasoning, Sam. He did it because he's desperate to get Jack back."

"That's definitely part of it." Sam agreed, then he stood and clapped Dean on the shoulder, gently nudging him from the chair. "Come on, we should get some sleep. We've gotta start looking for those ingredients tomorrow."

A fresh wave of guilt curdled in Dean's stomach, the price of those ingredients hadn't been cheap, but Sam was right. He levered himself out of the chair and followed his brother out. Before he turned into his own room however, he glanced down the hallway, towards where Cas' door was shut tight, clearly unwelcome to visitors. Dean shook his head and pushed his own door open. Falling onto his bed face-first he kicked off his boots and tried to quieten his mind.

 

***

 

He was woken at four am by a desperate need to pee and an old nightmare. He was tangled in his sheets, damp with cold sweat and had to fight for a few seconds to free himself. Eventually he managed to stand, with a groan, and stumble across to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. When he was done, he splashed his face with some water catching his reflection in the mirror. He tried to avoid doing that, it was dangerous; fresh from a nightmare he was more likely to start smashing things than style his hair. He ran his fingers through the short spikes and avoided his own eyes. Then he braced himself against the sink and took a few deep breaths to push the irrational terror back into the depths of his mind where it belonged. He shook his arms out to stop them from shaking and nodded grimly, deciding that a shower was probably his best option. He was never going to get back to sleep, not that he'd slept all that much, he was pretty sure he'd still been awake at two am, his mind turning over and over what Cas had done. Donatello hadn't been his favourite person, true, but he had been on their side, he had only been corrupted in the first place because he and Sam had dragged him into this. If they could do that to their own team and be okay with it then what did that say about them? How could they justify that?  
He didn't know. But as he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a clean towel, thinking of Mary, thinking of how desperately Sam was trying and how proud Cas had been to meet Jack, he realised that he absolutely could.

So what did that say about  _him_?

A soft knock jolted him from his reverie.

"Gimme a minute," Dean called, grabbing some clean boxers, yanking on a pair of jeans and pulling a t-shirt over his still wet hair before crossing the room to open his door.

It was Cas, of course. Sam was probably still asleep.

"You back for round two?" Dean asked testily, leaning against the doorframe. Cas shuffled his feet, and looked Dean up and down before relaxing slightly.

"I felt your fear and came to check on you. Nightmare?"

Dean's cheeks felt hot. "You shouldn't be feeling that crap from me. And you definitely shouldn't baby me about it. I'm fine."

"I didn't come here to fight, Dean."

"No, but we're gonna fight anyway, right?" he said bitterly, stepping to one side, allowing the angel access, "you might as well come in."

Cas did, glancing towards the rumpled bed as he did so, frowning as his eyes found the empty bottle of whiskey on the bedside table.

Dean crossed his arms, "I'm not in the mood to be judged, Cas."

"Ironic really, considering how harshly you're judging me." Cas sniped back.

"We've already established that I'm a hypocrite, or is that all you've got?" Dean tore the sheets from the bed and dumped them on the floor next to his laundry basket, he then grabbed his pillow and pulled off the cover, throwing that onto the pile too, followed by his sweat-soaked clothes, which actually made it into the basket. He avoided Cas' eyes while he did this, focusing on the task of retrieving some clean sheets from his cupboard, he began shaking them out.

Cas sighed, "You're making it very difficult to apologise."

Dean paused a moment and glanced up, "apologise?"

"Yes. I don't regret what I did, I stand by it being the right thing to do but I  _am_  sorry that it came to that. I reacted too quickly perhaps. I didn't enjoy it. I'm not indifferent. I just… I wanted you to know that."

Dean grunted, going back to the sheets, but felt a trickle of relief in his blood at the sincerity of Cas' tone.

"But I meant what I said, about putting my emotions aside. I can't afford to fall apart over this, you can't afford me falling apart over this. Yes, I violated a man's mind. He was soulless and corrupted but he was human and I broke a vow that I made as an angel that I would never abuse that power. I…" Cas seemed to steady himself with a breath, but when he looked up again, Dean met his eyes, "I betrayed myself by doing that, but I cannot feel that guilt until this is over. It won't serve anyone."

"I get that." Dean said, sliding the clean bottom sheet onto the bed and tucking the corners in. "Thing is, Cas, there is no over. There's always something else to push down, some ideal endgame to wait for that never comes. You can't live like that."

"You do."

Dean scoffed, finishing off the last corner and turning to face the angel, he even managed a smirk, Cas looked like he was only half-joking.

"Yeah, well  _you_  can't live like that, it's just not who you are. You work through your crap and you actually get somewhere. You should keep doing that."

"I don't have the time for self-doubt, I told you. I need to focus on the next move and I can't look back."

"When I said, 'don't lose yourself' I meant exactly that." Dean said sharply, "I've seen you focus on what's ahead, not looking back, not questioning your own decisions and you know what happened? You tried to be God and unleashed leviathan. I'm not a fan."

"And you think that what I did is a sign that my hubris is outweighing my reasoning?" Cas set his jaw, straightening up. "I learned from those mistakes, Dean. You've forgotten what I am."

"No." Dean said, shaking his head, throwing the new top sheet over the other one. "it's  _because_  I know what you are. You don't do stuff like this."

"I have some rather compelling evidence that says you're wrong." Cas shot back. "I am what you need me to be, always. Donatello had information that we could use to stop this war before it starts. He also had power that he could have and  _did_  use to hurt you, he was no innocent. We've done worse things to better people and managed to move on, why is this different?"

"Because you've got that look that you had when you were under Naomi's thumb." Dean said, throwing the final pillow back onto the bed, forcing his eyes back to the angels'. "Like you have your orders and you're just doing your job."

Cas looked at him for a long moment. Dean stared him down. He refused to give on this.

"My orders are my own." He said eventually, "I won't apologise for doing what soldiers do."

"You're not a soldier, Cas."

Cas bristled, "I was a soldier of God for  _millennia_  before you were even a possibility."

"You're  _not_  a soldier anymore!" Dean insisted, hating how desperate his voice sounded. He ran a hand over his face.

"Are you saying that I'm weak?" Cas asked, his voice dangerously low. "Are you saying that I'm incapable in battle? Because over the years I think I have proven-"

"No, Cas! That's not what I'm saying. You can fight, but you don't fight like a soldier. Soldiers fight because someone tells them to. That's not you, you fight because it's the right thing, because you believe it." Dean let out a shaky breath, why was this so hard to say? "You stopped being a soldier when you became a warrior, Cas. When you were free to choose what to fight for. Like me."

Cas' eyes pulled into a frown and he tilted his head, though some of the anger dissipated from his posture. The look he gave Dean said that he understood what Dean was saying. Dean felt a flush creeping up his neck, he'd never defined it that way in his head before but it felt right. John had raised him as a soldier, to kill monsters even when they cried for mercy, to protect his brother without question, until came the time to kill him. Dean hadn't been raised to make decisions or think for himself beyond tactical advantages. Breaking away from that had been one of the hardest things Dean had ever done, to choose to fight for Sam because he loved him, not because he'd been conditioned to.

"Perhaps. But fighting  _for_  morality and fighting  _with_  morality are two different things." The angel said carefully, a plea in his voice.

"That's crap." Dean snapped, "war is where morality matters the  _most_. Morality determines what side you're on."

"You doubt my allegiance?"

"Not for a second. But  _our_  side shouldn't be able to brush off what you did to Donatello."

"In every war there are detestable actions on all sides. This one will be no different. I have to prepare myself for that. I will not find myself incapable of fighting because my emotions dictate my actions."

"You think you need to tell me what war is like? Me?" Dean's voice shook slightly as the weight of his memories threatened to topple and break him open. "I've been fighting some kind of war or another since I was four years old. I saw Apocalypse World, okay? I know what happens if we fail, so don't try to act like you're the only one who seems to get it."

"You saw the end result of what happens if Michael is set loose." Cas argued, "you didn't see  _how_  it happened, because that's the true horror, Dean. It's not small groups of gutsy survivors mounting a resistance; in the beginning it's a massacre. Innocent people screaming and running for their lives, bodies dropping, confusion and terror and chaos. Mothers searching for their children, Children murdered without a thought. People killing themselves because it's easier and less scary than trying to find any kind of place in the new world and we won't be able to help them all. The idea of Michael winning isn't what scares me, Dean. It's the transition."

Dean didn't know what so say to that. Perhaps he sometimes  _did_  forget how much Cas had seen compared to himself. The angel broke the eye contact first.

"I just wanted to protect you," He said in a small voice, sitting on the very corner of the freshly made bed, "I should still be capable of  _that_  at least, and Donatello was a threat to you, to you both. I'm not sorry that he's no longer in a position to be able to hurt you."

"I mean, I do like it when my lungs work." Dean said with a forced laugh. Cas barely cracked a smile. His arms wrapped around himself and for all his millions of years, he looked more like a child than Dean had ever seen him. He placed a tentative hand on the angel's shoulder and took it as a good sign that Cas didn't shrug it off. "Look. It's good that you're watching out for us, I get it, okay? We have each other's backs, it's what we do, but you need to stop acting like it's your job to take on everything. Me and Sammy can handle ourselves, alright? We don't need you bringing out the bubble-wrap. When these things need doing, we do them together. As a family." The last few words felt thick on his tongue in a way they never had before. Like they didn't belong in quite the same context.

"Right." Cas said, a strange, hollow tone to his voice. "I understand."

"Really?" Dean asked, quirking an eyebrow. He grabbed his desk chair and spun it round so he could sit facing Cas. "It doesn't sound like you do."

"I understand that you feel that my usefulness has run its course."

"Your- Cas, what are you talking about?"

Cas sighed heavily and tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. He looked so far away. If Dean wanted, he could reach out and touch him but for a moment, Dean felt as though he'd be reaching forever if he tried.

"You do still need me, Dean. Whether you think you do or not. You need me to make decisions like I made with Donatello so you don't have to, I told you. We can't know that it ends with him, we can't know that this is the last time our options will be between bad or worse."

Dean's temper flared, "you think we can't make tough choices?" he asked, "you think you know so much better than us? You think that we need babying? Protecting from the world? Well, too late, sunshine, we've already been exposed. What we're doing is already selfish. If we were any kind of decent, we wouldn't go messing with making a portal. Like Billie said, it's dangerous to all the different worlds out there, plus it gives Michael an extra chance to hop a ride. But we can't leave it alone, we won't because our family is over there and we don't compromise when it comes to family. We will figure out our next move and we don't need you jumping onto the next goddamn angel blade because you think you're protecting us. Don't you dare throw yourself away like that again, don't you freakin' dare!"

Cas' eye jumped back to his, he looked startled at whatever he saw in Dean's face. Dean clenched his jaw and looked away, his own eyes passed over the empty bottle and he suddenly wished it had enough in it for just one more mouthful. It was too damn early for this.

"I want to help you." Cas said, "But you won't tell me how. Dean, if you need something from me you only have say so. But this silent expectation is what I can't stomach. You keep saying that you need me. The same way that you needed Donatello, the same way that you need Ketch. Why don't you just tell me what I have that I can give you?"

Dean's mouth went dry and the desperation in Cas' eyes made his heart clench painfully, the words punching through him like a sledgehammer. How could he not have seen how  _lost_  Cas was? How confused and unsure? He cursed himself; first, he didn't realise that the voice on the other end of the phone was Kentucky Fried Douchebag and now he missed this? What the hell was wrong with him?

"I - I don't need anything from you, Cas." Dean said after a moment, his throat tight as it pushed out the words. "Not a damn thing."

Cas' head bobbed in acknowledgement of the words and something in his eyes seemed to dim.

"So why am I here?" he asked.

"Because you wanna be here." He hesitated then, an old fear scratching beneath his skin. "You  _do_  wanna be here… right? Beyond getting Jack back, I mean."

"Of course I do."

Dean tried to repress his relieved sigh.

"Good. That's good."

"Is it?" Cas asked, his eyes unyielding. "Because you're acting like my presence here is a chore for you. It's like you don't trust me to do anything. You insisted on coming with me to fight Gog and Magog because you didn't think that I could handle it on my own. You preach free will and yet you berate me for doing what I think is right. What am I to make of that?"

"I  _care_  about you, you ass!" Dean snapped, the words pouring from him like lava, "I went with you to watch your back, I'm  _angry_  because it was our fault that Donatello got corrupted in the first place and we didn't get the chance to look for another way to help him. I'm  _sorry_ that I screwed up with the whole Asmodeus thing and I'm  _worried_  because I don't want to watch you follow my stupid 'whatever it takes' speech into a darkness you can't escape from or right onto another damn pyre! I can't go through that again, man! So forgive me for actually giving a damn about you, for wanting you to stick around, for calling you out when I think you're wrong. If you expect me to just sit back and watch you destroy yourself then I hate to disappoint you but that's not me. I won't do it. I can't."

Dean's hands had balled into fists on his knees and he was breathing heavily but he stared Cas down defiantly. Cas might not ever know the extent of his breakdown when he had been in the Empty but Dean knew he would do almost anything not to experience that again. It had been a low point he couldn't climb out of, a bottomless pit and he just kept falling. Booze, bacon and bullets hadn't made a dent, not even Sam had been enough to draw him out. If Cas hadn't come back… well, he couldn't be truly sure that he'd still be around either.

Perhaps Cas saw some of that in his face because he faltered, brows creasing in confusion, eyes widening with surprise. They stared at each other for a long time without speaking.

Finally, Cas nodded and stood.

"I've invaded your time long enough. You should try getting some more sleep."

"That's not gonna happen." Dean said, standing also. His tone was too casual, especially considering the conversation-slash-argument that they had just been having. "If I get a start on breakfast for me and Sam, will you put the coffee on? I'm gonna need at least a gallon of it. We've got seals of a holy man to find or whatever."

"Of course," Cas said with a small smile, leading the way from the room, "you're lucky we don't have to rely on your memory."

"I'm sorely lacking caffeine, you can't expect my brain to work."

"I never expect your brain to work." The angel said, deadpan, "that way I can't be disappointed."

Dean snorted with laughter and dug at Cas' ribs with his elbow. Cas just smiled.

They kept up good-natured banter until Sam trudged in, yawning, three hours later, but although laughing with his best friend was nice, there hadn't been much laughter to be had at all lately, none of it sat right with Dean. He frowned as Cas handed Sam a mug of coffee, smiling at something his brother had said.

He couldn't help feeling that maybe this time, perhaps for the first time, he wished that he and Cas had gotten everything out in the open. He wanted to understand and he wasn't sure how long they could keep sweeping it all under the rug. He wanted to figure out the right words that might make Cas realise that he was more than just a tool to them, more than just a weapon to be wielded. At least to him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So... there you have it?
> 
> I have to admit, I'm not particularly proud of this one. I knew it wouldn't leave me alone until I'd written it but it felt a little too cyclical with no progress which was only half of the point I wanted to get across. At least it's inkeeping with the current canon mood of the show? Maybe?
> 
> What do you think? Tips on how I could have done it better will be more than welcome, your opinions are invaluable. ^_^
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


End file.
